User blog:Xerxos/Top 15 Favorite Pokémon
I've always wanted to make a list like this. I know that these kinds of lists are normally just Top Tens, but while I was narrowing down my list, I found that I really wasn't able to cut it down to just ten Pokémon. Nuzlocking has introduced me to so many great different Pokémon, so getting down to fifteen was hard enough. I've used every single Pokémon on this list extensively, and I've used all but two of them in one or more Nuzlockes before. And they were all Absol-utely amazing. 'Honorary 16th Spot: '''All the bros and sises (is that how you spell that?) from my various Nuzlockes that weren't able to make it into the top 15 shall be honored at this spot. Or maybe not, because then there would be ''waaaaaaaay too many #16s. Like, over 150, I think. I've done a few too many Nuzlockes. I lost count at about 40. '15. Metagross - '''Metagross was the first Pokémon I ever raised to Level 100, and is one of only two Pokémon to have ever reached that level (that I've trained, of course. The other one was a Tyranitar). Because of this, it has always held a spot in my heart. It could sweep the Hoenn Elite Four without taking any damage, and even if an unlucky miss caused it to have to take a hit, its Leftovers would heal off the damage after a turn or so. Times were simpler back then; I was just a little 11-year-old playing a Ruby ROM on my computer, abusing space bar turbo, and just plain enjoying the game, without any knowledge of EVs or IVs or Natures or Nuzlocke or anything like that. I've never been able to use Metagross in a Nuzlocke, since I generally consider my Nuzlockes finished after I beat the Elite Four, but its strength, sheer badassery, and awesome design, combined with a little bit of a lot of nostalgia, place it in my Top 15. '''14. Archeops - '''This thing was definitely my favorite Pokémon for a while after I played through Black Version for the first time. It was an absolute powerhouse, and I used it so much that it got to Level 37 and evolved before most of my other Pokémon were even Level 30 yet. Its STAB Acrobatics completely wrecked everything, and it was always my go-to Pokémon when I needed a quick kill. Unfortunately, I've never gotten to use one in a Nuzlocke, since I either a) accidentally choose the Cover Fossil, b) get the traded Petillil in Nacrene instead because that thing is a beast, or c) it dies as an Archen because Archen's stats suck. My only complaint about Archeops is that they changed its name to Archeops; its Japanese name, Archeos, just sounds so much better. '''13. Lucario - '''No, I've never watched the movies. Yes, I still love Lucario. It's just an amazing Pokémon to have in-game, since its enormous movepool, great mixed attacking stats, and fantastic typing make it both easy and fun to use. It also helps that it's 100% obtainable, even in Nuzlockes. Its design is awesome, and its Mega Evolution is so completely overpowered that it's difficult to lose if you have it on your team. I also loved how it was actually good on the competitive scene, allowing me to use it on Showdown to great effect. '''12. Arcanine - '''I wanted to use Arcanine in a playthrough ever since I looked it up on Bulbapedia and saw that it had one of the highest base stat totals of any non-legendary Pokémon in the game. I must admit, though, when I finally got one and used it, it was rather underwhelming. I guess that was because I'd expected it to be some sort of Groudon-esque powerhouse, and it just simply lacked the stats and moves to fulfill that expectation. My Arcanine craze died about as quickly as it had started. After using it in a few more playthoughs (and eventually Nuzlockes), though, it became clear to me that while Arcanine wasn't exactly one of your typical glass-cannon sweepers, it was still an amazing Pokémon. With Intimidate, it could soak up pretty much any physical attack that your opponent tried to dish out, and its STAB Flamethrower absolutely decimated everything in-game in FireRed. Every time I've used an Arcanine in a Nuzlocke, it hasn't disappointed, and it generally serves the purpose of being an all-purpose tank. Unless it was fighting a Rock or Water-type Pokémon, my Arcanine always came out on top. '''11. Luxray - '''Every time I do a Nuzlocke of Sinnoh, I get a Shinx on one of the first few routes. Every. Single. Time. Am I complaining, though? Not really. Mostly because Luxray is one of the most badass Pokémon ever created. Electric is one of my two favorite types (the other being Fire), and Luxray exemplifies why that is. It hits hard, has great mixed attacking stats, comes early, and unlike most other Electric-types, it actually has decent defenses, as well as a nice Ability in Intimidate that helps shore up its physical defense. Also, did I mention that it's an electric lion that looks unbelievably cool? It has a great name, too. Sounds like a laser beam. Luxrays have always served me well in Nuzlockes, and I've taken around four or five to the Hall of Fame. I'm really hoping for Luxray to get a Mega Evolution in OR/AS. '''10. Nidoqueen - '''Nidoqueen is an impenetrable wall of bulk that can learn every good move in the game. What's not to like about that? Every time I've been lucky enough to find a Nidoran-♀ or Nidorina as my first encounter in a Nuzlocke, it pretty much always goes onto my team automatically. Nidoqueen's just so good that it's impossible to pass up on the chance of using one. Maia the Nidoqueen was part of my amazing team in my Pokémon Yellow Nuzlocke, which was one of the first Nuzlockes I ever completed. She was in every way the mother of the team, and ever since, I've had a love for using Nidoqueens in Nuzlockes. Elysium from LeafGreen, Naoko from Vega, Pentium from SoulSilver... the list just goes on and on. '''9. Jolteon - '''Everyone knows that Eeveelutions are awesome. They're cute, strong, and you can get them in quite a few of the main series games. Jolteon's always been my go-to choice when I play R/B/Y or FR/LG, and for good reason. It's very cute but also rather cool with its yellow spiky fur that just seems perfect for it, and STAB Thunderbolt from this thing ''hurts. Plus, unless you're facing an Electrode, an Aerodactyl, or another Jolteon, chances are you aren't going to get outsped. Except for in Generation V games, I generally pick up an Electric-type pretty early into the game (believe it or not, I can normally even manage this in Nuzlockes!). Jolteon started this trend, and three of the other early Electric-types that I like to use are also on this list. You've already seen Luxray, but what else will there be? '8. Haxorus - '''Yep, despite being my profile pic, Haxorus is way down here at Number 8. All things considered, though, being #8 out of 719 is still really good! What can I say about this thing that hasn't already been said, though? It has a kickass design, its Attack stat is off the charts, and it gets two of the best boosting moves that a physical sweeper could ask for in Dragon Dance and Swords Dance. Even if it doesn't run a boosted move, well, have fun surviving a Choice Banded Outrage from its 147 base Attack. Whenever I Nuzlocke B/W or B2/W2, I generally have pretty good luck finding an Axew in Guidance Chamber. I always seem to get a Woobat or Boldore in the part known as Mistralton Cave, but as soon as the location name changes to Guidance Chamber, boom! Instant Axew swarm. It's difficult enough evolving Axew for the first time, but getting Fraxure to Level 48 without inordinate amounts of grinding is sheer torture. It has awful bulk, and around the time of the game where you have a Fraxure, a lot of trainers start to show up with powerful, fully-evolved Pokémon. But once you get it to Level 48, holy balls is it worth it. Dragon Claw from Haxorus wrecks everything in its path, and it gets good enough coverage to be able to handle pretty much anything that resists its Dragon-type STAB moves. If I don't feel like grinding for the Elite 4 in a Nuzlocke, I normally just stuff my Haxorus with Rare Candies until its about ten levels about everything else, set up on the opponent's lead, and sweep. Nothing feels better than destroying Ghetsis with a +6 Outrage to the face. '''7. Crobat - '''It should be no surprise that I love Crobat. That's because everyone loves Crobat, and with good reason. It's one of the best Pokémon that a Nuzlocker can get, and it evolves from just about the most common piece of crap out there. Yeah, it's a pain raising a Zubat to Level 22, and then a couple more levels after stuffing it with vitamins and giving it massages and whatnot, but once you get a Crobat, there's really nothing out there that can stop you. STAB Wing Attack from this thing is rather painful for anything frail, Confuse Ray is great for trolling, and holy crap that Speed stat. Also, did I mention Crobat's amazing defensive typing that makes it the perfect counter for pretty much three-fourths of all Pokémon you might run into in-game? In fact, the only reason Crobat isn't higher on this list is because I've used it so much that I've pretty much started taking it for granted, which makes it a little bit boring to use. Ah, well. It's still way up at Number 7, though, and the only thing it's doing wrong is doing everything right. '''6. Nidoking - '''Yes, I like Nidoking more than I like Nidoqueen. Deal with it. Put simply, I just like sweepers more than I like defensive Pokémon. Plus, Nidoking's design is just insanely awesome. There's not much I really dislike about Nidoking. Its movepool allows it to fight against literally any trainer you'll find in-game, and even though its typing gives it several weaknesses to common types, that same "bad" typing gives it STAB on Earthquake, and Nidoking has many different coverage options with which it can kill its counters. It's basically the perfect Pokémon to have in R/B/Y, FR/LG, G/S/C, HG/SS and even X/Y. Trust me. I've used it in all five. '''5. Manectric - '''Somehow, before I started Nuzlocking, I had never used Manectric at all before. I always saw it as a rather underwhelming Pokémon, since whenever I tried to use Electrike, it sucked because the only attacking move it had for a long time was Quick Attack, and so I ended up dropping it pretty early on. If only I'd raised it long enough for it to learn Spark... Anyway, those were my innocent but pathetic pre-Nuzlocking days; back then, I knew next to nothing about Pokémon other than "hey, this thing looks cool, it must be strong". Even after I discovered the wonders of base stats, Natures, and Abilities, I still didn't think much of Manectric. Then I started my first Nuzlocke. I decided to do Pokémon Ruby, since it was the game I was the most familiar with, and it was my favorite game to play. As I said before, I'd never used Manectric before, so when my first encounter on Route 110 was an Electrike, I wasn't sure what to think. I named it Sparkzende (I was going to name it Sparky, but a slip of the finger caused me to hit 'z' at the end instead of 'y', and I decided to add on to that with a few random letters. Thus, Sparkzende). I immediately slapped the Exp. Share on him and waited for him to actually become decent. Unsurprisingly, it took quite a while. His Quick Attack was extremely weak, and it took way to long for him to evolve. But after that... just wow. He was absolutely and completely the MVP of the run, taking out enemies left and right with STAB Spark and later Thunderbolt, which was basically an automatic OHKO on anything that didn't resist it. Unfortunately, I just ''had to try and beat the Electrodes in Team Magma's hideout by Lilycove with him. I lost both of my highest leveled Pokémon to those things and their stupid SelfDestructs, as my Vibrava perished against the other one (I really need to start to learn from my mistakes). Needless to say, after using Sparkzende, my opinion about Manectric was completely reversed. Since then, I've taken five Manectrics to the Hall of Fame in Nuzlockes, and they've all been absolutely amazing. '4. Clefable - '''Clefable is another Pokémon I used to dislike. Well, actually, that's putting it lightly. I used to kinda hate Clefable. Its design was annoying, its popularity was annoying, its low stats were annoying, and ''oh god what is that color scheme. I thought it was just another one of those crappy pink blobs meant to attract girls to the game. And, in a sense, it was, and still is. That doesn't stop it from now being one of my all time favorites, though. Why the change of heart, you ask? Well, as with a few of the other Pokémon on this list, this one has a story. I was doing a Nuzlocke of vanilla FireRed, and I was approaching Mt. Moon. Right after I entered, I realized that I should probably use a Repel, since Zubats and Geodudes aren't very good in Kanto, and there are better and higher-leveled wild Pokémon on the bottom floor. After getting to the basement without running into anything thanks to the Repel, I fought the requisite Rocket Grunt and ran around until I found my potential Mt. Moon capture. I expected a Paras, or maybe even a Zubat, since my luck was, and still is, pretty crappy. But no. It was a Clefairy. Since I'd never used one before, I decided to set aside my resentment for the little pink blob long enough to catch it. I named her Leia, and she was the best Pokémon I ever raised. I evolved her pretty much immediately, since you can find several Moon Stones in Mt. Moon, and her bulk at that stage in the game was unbelievable. She could also dish out some serious pain with STAB Mega Punch, courtesy of the Route 4 Move Tutor. Throughout the game, whenever her power started to dwindle, I just fed her a new TM, and she became amazing again. She could use pretty much every single useful move in the game, from Water Pulse to STAB Return to Brick Break to freaking BoltBeam. Oh, right, and then there was SoftBoiled. You see, on that particular Nuzlocke, I was only allowing myself to use each Pokémon Center twice, so most of my healing had to be done with items. Or did it? Leia's SoftBoiled allowed her to heal my other teammates outside of battle, and her high HP stat made her not even decline in usefulness after sharing her health. Plus, she could just use the move within battle to recover the shared HP. She led my team through nearly every single boss battle in the game, since her coverage allowed her to win against pretty much anything. She later managed to take down Lance almost singlehandedly with Thunderbolt and Ice Beam coming off of her great Special Attack stat. And then the Champion battle happened. The battle was going pretty well, and I hadn't run into any real threats that I couldn't easily deal with. That is, until he sent out his Alakazam. As I normally did when I ran into difficult opponents, my first instinct was to send in Leia. Psychic did a little less than half to her, whereas her Return came tantalizingly close to OHKOing the adversary. However, the Alakazam managed to set up a Reflect. Two Returns brought it into the Full Restore zone for a second time, and Leia still had a lot of health left, about 75%. I chose to go with Brick Break to shatter the screens and get a little damage off on the Alakazam, because I was sure he would heal. He should've healed. It made no sense for him not to heal. But he didn't heal. And he used Psychic, seemingly just for spite damage. But her health kept going down. I looked down at the screen. A critical hit! It made no sense. There was an infitesimally small chance that it would happen. Not healing while in the Full Restore zone, and then using Psychic, and then ''getting a critical hit? I don't cry often, but this very nearly brought me to tears. My best team member, my favorite little pink blob, gone, just like that, thanks to stupid RNG bullsh*t. My Arcanine came in and ripped that POS Alakazam to pieces, and then proceeded to rampage through the rest of my rival's team. But the damage was done. Ever since then, Clefable has held a special place in my heart, and also a special place in my Top 5 Favorite Pokémon. '''3. Espeon - '''Yes, mostly because it's cute. But also because it's a complete badass in battle. I loved playing Pokémon Silver back when I was young, and I ''always evolved my Eevee into Espeon and promptly proceeded to tear the game a new one. It's just such a great Pokémon! While it is somewhat difficult to use in a Nuzlocke, thanks to its godawful bulk, Espeon has the speed and power to crush the game beneath its heel. I had an Eevee in a Gold Nuzlocke that I did, which was one of my first ever Nuzlockes, and I wanted to evolve it into an Espeon. So I grinded. And grinded. And grinded some more. Again and again, it refused to evolve. It took a good thirty or so levels to finally turn into the cute little powerhouse that I knew and loved. By that time, it was massively overleveled, and I steamrolled the game with it. His name was Ivy, and he led the team to Red and beyond. His Psychic could OHKO pretty much anything in his way, and he could singlehandedly crush the Elite Four with ease. I've used several different Espeons through the years, inside and outside of Nuzlockes, and they've all been amazing. Powerful, useful, cute as hell... what isn't there to like? '2. Typhlosion - '''Say that name aloud. ''Typhlosion. It sounds like the noise that a volcano would make when it erupts, and holy crap, Typhlosion is the perfect embodiment of that. From the very beginning, Cyndaquil has been my preferred starter, and with good reason; Fire-type is one of my favorite types (along with Electric), and Typhlosion is awesome and powerful and it looks awesome and it has a really cool name and and and and and. Anyway. Let's talk Nuzlocke. I've chosen Cyndaquil in numerous different Nuzlockes, probably around five or six. I don't think there has been a single one who has died. Not a single one. Styx from my Gold Nuzlocke? Helped to beat Red, even while underleveled. Vesuvius from SoulSilver? Wrecked the Elite Four with Eruption, and then proceeded to stay the hell away from Lance because Dragons and stuff. Cy from a different SoulSilver Nuzlocke? Decimated Red and all of his babies. All the other Typhlosions that I've used and destroyed stuff with? Amazing. Typhlosion is super fun to use, it learns some incredible moves by level-up, such as Flamethrower and Eruption, and it just plain looks cool. Plus, it was the first Pokémon I remember ever using. What in the Pokémon Universe could possibly top that? '''1. Ampharos - '''Yep, a sheep. A sheep could definitely do it. Pokémon Silver Version was my favorite Pokémon game, and my favorite video game in general, for a long time when I was little. I loved using the awesome Typhlosion and the cute little Espeon and the badass Nidoking, but the core of my team was never complete without an Ampharos. Unlike most Electric-types, Ampharos has low speed but very good bulk, which makes it able to actually survive quite a few nasty hits. In the past, I've had Ampharoses that have survived everything from Hyper Beams to SelfDestructs to freaking Earthquakes. Plus, Ampharos packs some serious power; it actually has a higher base Special Attack than offensive juggernauts such as Greninja and Manectric. STAB Thunderbolt from this thing was nigh unstoppable in the early G/S/C days, and when HeartGold and SoulSilver rolled around, awesome coverage moves such as Focus Blast, Power Gem, and Signal Beam became available to everyone's favorite bipedal electric sheep. Ampharos is so awesome that the absence of the Mareep line is pretty much the only thing I don't like about Pokémon Crystal, and Amphy is generally the main reason I ever opt to play Silver or Gold instead. Ampharos has also served me very well in the various Nuzlockes I've used one in, and they usually end up being the designated tank, the one who can switch in when nobody else can. High availability, fantastic battling prowess, good looks, a great name, and a tint of nostalgia all combine to make Ampharos my #1 favorite Pokémon. Category:Blog posts